Sleeping Habits
by aphelion-orion
Summary: Sharing a bed is not as easy as it seems. [fluff, a bit of angst, implied sex, SxC]


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**Fandom: **pre-FF7  
**Pairing: **SxC  
**Rating:** PG-13**  
Warning:** Fluff. Garnished with a bit o' angst. Topped with implied sex. Oh, and the yaoi. Don't forget the yaoi.  
**Disclaimer: **I may be insane, but I'm still not Nomura and his colleagues. XP

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**Sleeping Habits**

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_1. Invited_

Cloud was not used to sleeping next to someone. When he slept, he slept with his back to the wall, his knees drawn up to just beneath his chin and his arms locked around his thighs, and remained so all through the night.

He had been an only child with a room to himself, no friends to have sleepovers with, and up until now, no lover to share a bed with either. The only time he had ever been a guest in somebody else's bed had been during one cold winter night, when a snowstorm had shattered his bedroom window. His mother had spent the better part of an hour fighting against the wind and snow while trying to board up the shattered window pane, her long white nightgown billowing behind her like a sail with every blast of cold air, until she had decided it was hopeless and taken him to the bigger bedroom across the hall. They had spent the remainder of the night huddled together under the sheets as the icy draft crept in through the cracks in the doorframe.

Cloud had been about six years old.

The first time he spent the night in Sephiroth's bed, he had been too exhausted and confused by the activities preceding sleep to worry about it too much. The second and third time had been a little less overwhelming.

Sephiroth's bed was so large that two people could sprawl out as widely as they could and fall asleep without ever touching each other. It lacked a headboard and any obstacles -like a frivolous amount of pillows - that might prevent an occupant from rolling off the edge on either side. The bed stood in the center of the room, no other furniture surrounding it. Cloud remembered thinking back then that he wouldn't be surprised if the space on either side of the bed was wide enough to comfortably wield an extremely long sword in. Later, he found out that the distance from each wall to the bed was exactly seven feet and five inches.

On the second night in Sephiroth's bed, Cloud felt inexplicably tense, almost more nervous about sharing a bed with someone, _anyone _else, than about sleeping with the legendary general. He knew there was an unwritten rule somewhere that lovers had to spend the night in each other's arms, as countless cheesy movies and his squad mates (those who had steady girlfriends, at least) proclaimed.

He waited to see what Sephiroth would do. The man did not seem like the cuddling type, but Cloud still remained half afraid that he would be forced to relinquish his comfort zone to a foreign embrace and, unused to having someone near him, would end up doing something unbelievably stupid like kneeing the general in the groin in his sleep.

When Sephiroth rolled over, switched off the light and remained on the left side of the bed, unmoving, Cloud felt relieved. He shifted closer to the opposite side of the bed and curled in on himself. There was no wall, so he went to sleep with his back facing Sephiroth. He found that worked better than any wall.

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_2. Newness_

Sephiroth was not used to sleeping next to someone.

For a good part of his life, the luxury of a bed had been unknown to him, so once he began his service in the Shinra army, he guarded whatever personal space they allowed him closely and tirelessly. Having a lieutenant enter his life who referred to himself as an "attention whore" and who chose to disregard any and all codes of conduct, dignity and propriety on principle, did not exactly make this task any easier.

True to his nicknames, Zack had begun invading Sephiroth's personal space at any given moment. Sephiroth loathed being touched by others - not that many people were stupid enough to try - but for some reason, his skin stopped crawling after the one hundred and forty-seventh time of becoming the victim of one of Zack's infamous tackle-hugs.

His general aversion to touch also pertained to his sleeping arrangements. Any lovers he took were entertained in the living room or in his office; none of them ever made it to his bed. They all knew better than to insist on staying the night.

He did not know why he had led the pretty blond cadet into his bedroom. Later, he supposed it had happened because he had come to regard the boy as Zack's little shadow, trailing him almost everywhere, and anyone so closely associated with Zack deserved to be treated with at least a modicum of respect. At that time, he had been quite preoccupied with the events to follow to think about it in great detail.

Sephiroth did know, however, what had caused him to keep the blond in his bed. It had been those eyes - eyes that kept looking at him with a strange mixture of wariness and curiosity, vulnerability and stubbornness even as the boy struggled to hold in his cries of pleasure.

Going to sleep with the knowledge that there was another person lying next to him had been more than awkward and uncomfortable. He had been half afraid that the blond, for all his similarities to Zack, would prove to have the same lack of survival instincts and attempt to cuddle him in his sleep. Zack had done that once, because - as he insisted later - there had been a gnarled root digging into his back and Sephiroth's side had looked a lot more comfortable. Sephiroth, more than half asleep, had reacted out of instinct. Needless to say, Zack had been a bit surprised to find himself flat on his back with Sephiroth's fingers pressing down on his larynx.

Cloud, though, as sleepy as he had been, had curled into a tiny ball and remained in the same spot all through the night, and every night afterward, for which Sephiroth was absurdly grateful.

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_3. Warmth_

Winter in Nibelheim meant snow up to the first floor of any house in town and five months of icy, stinging cold. As a child, Cloud had met winter dressed in long underwear, woolen pullovers, an extra pair of socks and an assortment of scarves and gloves, hand-knit by his mother. Although he had grown up in a cold climate, Cloud despised the cold and would do anything to avoid it, as shown by his penchant for scalding hot showers and his tendency to wear long-sleeved pajamas to bed.

It should not have come as a surprise to him that, especially given the distinct lack of warm, fuzzy pajamas on the alternate nights he spent with Sephiroth, his body would attempt to find another means of staying warm in his sleep.

The migration process towards the large and rather convenient heat source on the other side of the bed was a slow, languid affair - it almost seemed as if something in Cloud knew that he would never attempt to do so as long as he was even partially conscious - but every morning, Cloud would wake up to realize that his body had betrayed him by another inch.

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_4. First Things First_

Waking up next to someone in the morning was a relatively new and surprisingly pleasant experience.

Sephiroth had never kept a lover longer than a handful of meetings, certainly not long enough to begin feeling comfortable in their presence. Sex had always been a means of relieving stress and pent-up frustration, but lately, he found himself indulging in it a lot more often than absolutely necessary. He could not say for certain why that was, either, but he suspected it was a combination of the small, responsive body beneath his and the way Cloud was always watching him with the same open look he had worn on their first night, open and honest.

Normally, Sephiroth would wake up first, slip out of bed and get ready for work without making a sound. By the time he returned home, the bed was neatly made and all traces of Cloud were gone, and he would find himself oddly disappointed for reasons that were only marginally related to sex.

Sephiroth's eyes left the darkened face of the digital clock. By this time, he was usually on the way to his office, mentally steeling himself against the mind-numbing load of paperwork. It wasn't like he needed to be there this early, Sephiroth reasoned, it was just that he had never had a reason to stay in bed, awake, and listening to the walls closing in on him.

Cloud was curled up at his side, cheek resting against his biceps. His soft exhalations left a warm spot that tingled as it cooled, only to be warmed once again. His sleeping body looked very inviting.

Sephiroth pressed a light, close-mouthed kiss to the back of the boy's neck, feeling the fine hairs bristle against his lips. Cloud stirred briefly, dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks, and mumbled a sleep-slurred variation of Sephiroth's name, but did not wake up.

The walls stayed silent.

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_5. Nightmare_

Cloud awoke to the mattress shifting beneath him and the sheets periodically tightening across his waist. He blinked and began rubbing the sleep from his eyes, when the sheets were yanked again and a soft grunt came from the man at his side.

Sephiroth's face was drawn taut in a grimace, his tangled feet kicking against the blankets in an attempt to get free. Cloud reached over and shook his shoulder, hoping it would be enough to draw him into the world of the waking.

The reaction was instantaneous: Sephiroth jerked into a sitting position, rolled over onto his knees, one of his hands closing around Cloud's wrist with a crushing grip and the other flying to his throat, poised to squeeze.

Sephiroth opened his eyes, revealing tightly contracted pupils surrounded by the Mako flare, looking cold and bright and fierce.

Then, recognition flitted across his face, and he withdrew his hands as if they had been plunged into acid, cradling them loosely against his chest. Cloud released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, looking up at his lover with wide, frightened eyes.

The silver-haired man disentangled himself from the sheets and slid off the bed.

Cloud rolled over onto his side when he heard a door close and, a moment later, the sound of running water. Slowly, he rotated his wrist, feeling a dull ache shoot up his arm. His throat felt tight, but he was not certain whether or not that came from Sephiroth's hand.

The bathroom door reopened, light casting a yellow rectangle on the blankets before it was shut off. The slight dipping of the mattress was the only indication that Sephiroth had crossed the room and sat down. It was dark, but he thought he saw him rubbing a hand across his brow.

Not knowing what to say, Cloud stayed silent. He wanted to reassure Sephiroth somehow, tell him that he was unhurt, but his throat still felt tight and he could not speak. After a long time, Sephiroth turned to face him, the glow of his eyes in the dark startling Cloud for the first time in a long time.

The green seemed dull now.

Cloud suddenly felt very foolish. He reached across the space between them with his injured hand, resting his palm against the back of Sephiroth's own hand, letting him feel his clammy fingers and hoping wildly that this would be able to convey what his voice could not.

Neither of them said anything. After a while, Sephiroth shifted his hand, fingers curling lightly around Cloud's own, thumb carefully stroking his wrist.

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**A/N: **This series of drabbles was inspired by notes from my psychology class, which I took what seems like a lifetime ago. We were discussing sleeping patterns and how they change when certain conditions for the sleeper change, e.g. when suddenly sharing a bed with another person. So yeah. If you're going 'wtf?' now, don't worry. It's not just you. XD

C&C is, as always, much appreciated.


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